Persons involved in automobile accidents, medical emergencies, or other sorts of incidents requiring an emergency response are often incapacitated or otherwise unable to place a telephone call to appropriate emergency personnel, using the emergency “911” service for example. As an illustration, a person involved in a car accident may be knocked unconscious when his or her head collides with the steering wheel as a result of the impact. In the event that an emergency occurs in an automobile, current solutions for notifying emergency personnel include the ONSTAR™ system, which may be used to summons emergency personnel if the driver or another person presses an appropriate button. Of course, if the driver is incapacitated or otherwise cannot press the button, the authorities may not be notified of the accident as quickly as desired. A related solution includes using ONSTAR™ or a similar system to automatically call an emergency dispatcher in response to the airbag in an automobile being deployed. However, these solutions are limited to automobile-based implementations and are only able to summons help in response to certain emergency events.